Feeling Blue? The Importance of Adding Colour to Your Life July 30 2016

Want to add some colour to your life? Our new range of personalised coloured signs gives you the option to choose a plaque to match your decor, stand-out or reflect your mood. In pink, blue, purple, cream, green and orange we are continuing our revolution to make the mundane magnificent. Do you need to tell the postman where to leave your packages? Ask guests to ring the bell? Warn people to mind the step or let visitors know you’re in the garden? As well as our brushed gold, silver and white signs, why not pick a coloured plaque for your message instead. Undecided about which of the many colours to pick? We’re here to help with that too. Below are some pointers about why colour matters and to help make that all important choice:

Want to win at sport? If you are playing team games, try to have a red kit to increase your chances of winning. If you want the other team to lose, paint their changing area pink to reduce the killer instinct in your opponent. If the referee is dressed in black, more penalties are likely to be awarded.

Feeling blue? Paint your room blue. In Japan train stations have been painted blue to reduce suicides. Colours are linked to the emotions linguistically such as a black mood or feeling browned-off. Wondering what colour to paint a nursery? Avoid yellow as it has been proven to increase the amount your baby will cry.

Need to pass an exam? Make sure you sit it in a yellow room. The eyes need more chemicals to see yellow which also increases concentration although it may increase your stress levels. A study in the US showed students did 10-15% better. Use colour for revision notes and diagrams which improve recall better than black and white pages. It can increase learning from 55 to 78% and comprehension by 73% (David Embry: The Persuasive Properties of Colour, 1984). Using colour can also help you to focus on the key information and avoid being overwhelmed by what’s on the page.

Trying to create a good first impression? Whether it is a person or a product, we make an initial judgement within the first 90 seconds, of which up to 90% will be influenced by colour. If you are planning to wear red to a job interview, it is worth considering the connotations with men being perceived as more aggressive and women as more sexually attractive (Royal Society Journal Biology Letters).

Making a purchase? Colour is considered a key factor in over half of purchases. (Secretariat of the Seoul International Color Expo 2004). When Heinz introduced green ketchup it led to a staggering $23 million in extra sales all because of a colour change. So when choosing the colour of your sign, think about the colours you like, how it will fit with the interior decor, its possible psychological impact but also its connotations depending where you are going to place it. For example red on many signs can have connotations of love if it is a sign for Valentine’s Day; however it is also used on some of our Vital Signs to alert people that something is forbidden such as smoking. Create your own coloured Vital Sign, with our ‘Write Your Own’ range. Why should you do this? Coloured advertisements are read up to 42% more often than black or white ones (Jan White: Colour for Impact, 1997) and attention paid to an image increases by at least two seconds.

It’s very easy to bring some colour into your life: simply select your choice of colour, font and hanging attachment; fill in the box, on the listing page, the text you would like and pop it into your basket, be it a message to a loved one, an instruction or an inspirational quotation. If you still cannot decide on the shade, order more than one and alternate. We’ll make and post from our barn on the farm in no time so that a rainbow of colour drops into your letterbox. What could be better if you're feeling a bit blue? Find our coloured signs here at: http://bit.ly/29003WU and on Etsy too: http://etsy.me/2anP89p